Once upon a time, there was a small Taterbug who had a lovey. It was a crocheted blanket (referred to as a “woobie”) that she carried with her everywhere, and wrapped herself in while she fell asleep sucking her little thumb. As the months passed, the woobie stretched out and the holes between the stitches grew large enough for her to poke her fingers (and toes) through. This woobie was the 4th in a line of crocheted blankets that had been loved until they fell apart and were laid away in a keepsake box.
Because the #4 Woobie (that’s what she called it) was so beloved, The Taterbug’s mom crocheted her a poncho from the same yarns, so that the #4 Woobie could be left safely at home when the family traveled. The poncho was appreciated, but it was not an actual Woobie, so her mom also began to crochet a copy of the #4. It was set aside, unfinished, then misplaced and forgotten in the course of ordinary family life.
One day, a terrible thing happened. The Taterbug accompanied her parents to a thrift store, and despite her mom’s warning, she insisted on taking the #4 Woobie with her. There had been past incidents of forgetting the Woobie at the homes of family members, but on this day, the beloved #4 Woobie was forgotten at the thrift store. Nobody noticed the loss until the family was on their way home (over 100 miles away), well after 5pm. on a Friday. To say The Taterbug was distraught would be an understatement.
When The Taterbug’s parents remembered to call the Thrift Store to see if the Woobie had been found, they were told that the store didn’t have a lost and found, and that nobody in the store remembered seeing it. The Taterbug made do with a different woobie (this one was inexplicably dubbed the “Fifty-Twenty”), knit from the same yarn, but in totally different colors. Of course it wasn’t the same, but since she’d had it prior to the loss of the beloved #4, it was at least familiar.
During this time, The Taterbug voluntarily gave up her cute thumb-sucking habit much to the relief of her parents and her dentist. Perhaps the habit was a little easier to give up because the #4, which she had always woven her fingers through while thumb sucking, was gone. She occasionally lamented the loss of her #4, but she never asked for a new one. Her mom remembered that there was a partial copy of it somewhere in the house, but despite more than one search, could not find it.
A couple of years later, The Taterbug’s mom decided to sort through a tangled mess of yarn, the result of Boodie’s highly aggravating “tie yarn in knots and string it all over the house” phase. Hiding beneath the yarn mess was the missing half-finished copy. The Taterbug’s mom gathered up all of the colors of the yarn (Caron Simply Soft) that she had, and asked The Taterbug if she’d like to have a new woobie just like the lost #4 (though it would not be as pilly and stretched out as the original) and she eagerly said “Yes!”. She decided that rather than the bright blue stripe from the original, she’d prefer a bright purple stripe in it’s place. In just a couple of evenings, the giant granny square blanket was finished.
Though the small Taterbug is bigger and no longer sucks her thumb, she still likes to watch some TV with her #5 Woobie.
